


small gestures

by afewreelthoughts



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Compliant, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 21:11:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18786286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewreelthoughts/pseuds/afewreelthoughts
Summary: Renly has a surprise for Loras. Loras is not impressed.





	small gestures

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing and make no money from this. Everything belongs to George R.R. Martin.

Loras frowned when Renly pulled his hands away from his eyes.

“Do you like it?” Renly said excitedly.

“What am I looking at?” said Loras.

“Here…” Renly picked up the circlet from the bed in front of him. It was solid gold, shaped like a vine of roses, with a green stag’s head affixed to one side.

“Is it for me?” Loras asked.

“It’s my new crown.”

“Usually when you tell someone that you have a surprise for them, it’s a gift.” He folded his arms over his chest and squared his shoulders.

Renly didn’t seem to register his annoyance. “Don’t you remember?” he said, sparks in his eyes. “Your first tourney in King’s Landing? When you defeated Jaime Lannister?”

“The day I lay with you for the first time? Yes,  _I remember it_ ,” Loras said.

“When your father and I were discussing what my crown should look like, I remembered the one you made for me, and that’s what I wanted.”

Loras turned the crown over in his hands and set it down on the bed. “They look nothing alike.”

The crown of roses Loras had made Renly was a messy thing put together with the handful of roses that had been sewn into his cloak and stained with spots of blood from grappling with their thorns.

“Are you… mad at me?” Renly said. 

“Are you really asking?”

“I was trying to do something nice for you.”

“This has nothing to do with me, and you know it.”

“Tell me what I can do.” Renly lay his hand on Loras’s arm, and Loras pushed it off.  

“Maybe I can’t be pleased right now.”

“I thought this was what you wanted,” Renly said.

A lump filled Loras’s throat.

He hadn’t felt any ill will towards Margaery since they were ten years old, and Marge seemed to win at everything she did, even that one fateful family game of Cyvass, when he had yelled at Garlan for “letting her win.” But watching them together, the handsome king and his beautiful bride, so perfect that no one could see them and not believe they were destined for the throne, made him feel ill, pointless, disposable.

“I thought it was too. But it turns out you don’t need me.”

“Of course I need you, Loras.”

Renly sat on the edge of the bed and took Loras’s hands, the crown forgotten beside him.

“You know you’re to be the commander of my kingsguard?”

“Dress in white and guard you from imaginary threats?”

“The threats won’t be imaginary, Loras. Not even when we take the throne.” He squeezed his hands, and Loras felt an intrusive warmth spreading in his chest.

“And we’ll make a new order of kingsguard, for a new age.” Renly’s eyes sparkled. “Each dressed in a different color.” He pulled Loras closer and pulled at the ties on his trousers.  

“Go on,” Loras said.

“And you’ll be the lord commander, clothed in all seven.”

 _Lord Commander of the Kingsguard._  His head spun. They had discussed it, but the hearing the words made him giddy.

“All seven colors at once?”

Renly seemed to be seriously considering it for the first time. “A rainbow cloak, perhaps? Like the faith militant used to wear?”

“Because you’re so religious.”

“The people will love it.”

“So is it for me or for the people?”

“What?”

Loras sighed. “I’m going. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No!” Renly fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around him. “It’s for you, all for you. I need you. Please I need you.”

Loras dug his fingernails into his palms and breathed deeply. Renly could throw a fit when he didn’t get what he wanted. Even if what he wanted was as ridiculous as Loras personally blessing his marriage to Margaery without restraint or reservation.

Loras put a hand beneath Renly’s chin and tilted it up. “Tell me  _how_  you need me. Tell me  _why_ you need me.”

He looked Loras directly in the eye. “I need you in my bed. I need you by my side. I need you defending me. None of this matters without you.”

Loras ran a hand through Renly’s hair. “I believe you.”

Renly’s eyes lit up.

“But it should be me up there with you, not her. This still hurts.” 

“I know.”

“And you can’t go around being mad at me for being hurt.”

Renly pulled at the laces on his trousers, this time unraveling them, and running a hand along his small clothes. “Can I make it up to you.” 

The same warmth blossomed across Loras’s chest, and this time it moved down between his legs. “You can try.”


End file.
